Don’t Look Twice. Andrew Gross
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was actually the Harry Larson housing project on Pembroke in Bridgeport’s East End, two tall gray towers built in the sixties amid a neighborhood of run-down single-family homes.
Just stepping into the decrepit, paint-chipped lobby, the smell of disinfectant and island cooking, the sense that he was stepping into hostile territory, took Hauck back to when he used to work for the NYPD or to Gangland documentaries on TV. He felt safer since Artie had brought along two uniformed patrolmen.
They took the jerky, urine-smelling elevator up to Anna Maria Ruiz’s apartment on the fourth floor. Outside, Ewell motioned to them to check their weapons. He rapped his knuckles against the door.
“Mrs. Ruiz? Please open up. It’s Detective Ewell of the Bridgeport police.”
There was no reply.
Ewell knocked again, louder. “Mrs. Ruiz…? This is the Bridgeport police.”
Finally a woman’s voice came back. “One meenit, please…”
A lock opened and the door came ajar slightly. Through the chain, a face peeked out. It was Ruiz’s older daughter. Rosa. The one in nursing school, Hauck recalled.
“Do you remember me?” Ewell said. “I’m Sergeant Ewell. We’re looking for Victor, Rosa.”
She shook her head. “Veector’s not around.”
“You mind if we come in? Is your mother at home? It will only take a second.”
“Mamá, es la policía,” Hauck heard the daughter say. She opened the door.
It was a small two-bedroom apartment with chipped plaster walls and a large crucifix on the wall over the small wooden table in the dining area. It was clean and well kept, with a wear-worn patterned couch and plants in the corner near an outmoded console TV. Hauck noticed an arrangement of photos on the wall. A young boy in his confirmation suit who he took to be Victor. On a console was a larger, framed photograph: a pretty, dark-haired girl in a pink gown at what looked like her middle school graduation.
The TV was turned to the local news channel.
Anna Maria Ruiz was a tiny, small-boned woman with fearful dark eyes. She spoke Spanish, punctuated with a little broken English. She explained she was only home because she had been recently laid off and was about to head to her night job as a housekeeper at the Hyatt in Stamford. Rosa translated.
“My mom wants you to know that my sister was a good girl. She wasn’t into trouble. She was preparing to go to college. She hoped to be an accountant.”
“Tell your mother we’re all very sorry for her loss,” Ewell said, “and for having to be here today…” He introduced Hauck and Munoz. Mrs. Ruiz’s eyes drifted to the stains on Hauck’s blood-speckled jeans.
“You can tell her I’ve lost a daughter too,” Hauck said. “I understand what she may be feeling…”
He waited while Rosa translated. The mother’s small, slightly wary eyes showed life in them. “May God shine his love on you…” she said softly, in Spanish.
Hauck put up his hand. “Tell your mother I understand.”
“Él comprende, Mamá…” Anna Maria Ruiz forced a tight smile.
“But something bad happened today that might be related to your daughter.” Hauck went through the events as Rosa translated. The red truck at the station, the guy in the red bandana leaning out, shouting. The guy in the green vest.
Anna Maria Ruiz shook her head.
“He was a very important man,” Hauck said to her. “There will be a lot of attention on this…”
“We need to talk to Victor, Mrs. Ruiz,” Artie Ewell interjected.
“Victor no está aquí.”
“You think my brother would ever try to kill a federal attorney?” Rosa said, her dark eyes lit with both anger and outrage.
“No,” Hauck said. “I don’t think that’s what he was trying to do at all.”
Munoz took out the newspaper article they had found in the abandoned pickup. Rosa read, and the mother took one look at it and her eyes stiffened in fear. She shook her head.
“Victor would no do something like this.”
“The person who did do it shouted out your daughter’s name,” Hauck said. “I was there, Mrs. Ruiz. With my own daughter.”
“Su niña?” the woman said, wide-eyed.
“Where is Victor?” Artie Ewell pushed.
The mother looked at Rosa and shook her head again. “Victor no está aquí.”
“He made statements to some of the other families after the accident,” Hauck said. “Some of them interpreted them as threats…”
“No, no threats,” the mother said in English, seeming to comprehend. “I always feel bad, for those children. I never hold it against them, never, what happened. They were foolish. Foolish children. They were my daughter’s friends.”
“Maybe Victor didn’t do it,” Art Ewell said. “Maybe someone he knows did. We just want to talk with him. We know he’s involved in a gang.”
“No. No gang…” The woman shook her head; this time fear shone in her eyes. “I tell you, we have nothing against that family. I no know them, but I know their son is good, like Josephina. He came to her Mass. This is not a thing we would ever wish on them…”
“Where is he, Mrs. Ruiz?” Artie Ewell asked again.
Hauck’s gaze fell on something underneath the couch. The tip of a white high-top sneaker peeking out from under the upholstered flap. Munoz noticed it too, then Artie. They looked in the direction of the bedrooms.
Anna Maria Ruiz saw it as well, her features suddenly twisted in alarm.
Munoz took out his gun and kept it by his side. “Victor Ruiz!” he called out. “If you’re in here, I want you to identify yourself and come out with your hands in the air.”
“He wouldn’t do such a thing,” Rosa pleaded. She clutched her mother’s arm. “It wasn’t him, please…”
Drawing his own gun, Hauck headed toward the bedrooms. He slowly opened one of the doors as Rosa shouted behind them, “Mama, tell them, please…!”
It was a teenage girl’s room. Posters on the wall. Marc Anthony. Beyoncé. A baby-blue bedspread. Books on a makeshift desk. Like it hadn’t been disturbed for months.
“Victor Ruiz!”
No answer.
Hauck made his way inside the larger bedroom. The mother’s room. A white work uniform was neatly draped over a chair next to an ironing board. On the dresser, there was a statuette of the Virgin Mary.
“Victor?”
He kicked a pair of slippers out from under the bed and glanced underneath. He looked, brushing clothing aside, inside the closet.
Nothing.
Slowly, Hauck pushed open the bathroom door. The room was plain, undecorated. A few toiletries crowded around the sink. A pink plastic shower curtain was drawn across the tub.
Hauck edged off the safety from his gun.
“Victor?”
He heard a click.
Hauck raised his Sig. “You open that curtain slowly,” he said, “and I want to see your hands out first, you understand?”
There was silence at first, then the rustle of someone shifting on his feet.
Hauck took a step back.